"I simply _loathe_ it," she declared. "Such a silly thing, I call it! Why should one spend _hours_ in trying to find out how many yards of carpet it takes to cover the schoolroom floor, when all one has to do is to run through Tod Lane and ask Mr. Small, who keeps the shop, and he can tell in a moment, without even looking at a book." "But suppose Mr. Small thought it to his advantage to sell you more carpet than you needed?" "Why, he wouldn't do such a thing," she indignantly replied; "he is a churchwarden." There was another short silence and then she began again: "Ten shillings is a lot of money." I agreed. "However," she continued, "I suppose it doesn't signify. Americans are very rich, are they not?" I said some were. "But you must be to hand out ten shillings just like that." "Oh, I don't know. My share is only five shillings. You will pay half, will you not?" "_Not living!_" she hastily exclaimed. "There, I have that wrong. Please say it again." When I had repeated the familiar slang, she echoed it. Evidently it gave her great satisfaction, for I heard her muttering it to herself over and over again. Finally she said: "That _is_ a jolly saying." Then, with apparent irrelevance--but that no doubt was due to my slowness in following her mental processes--"I am glad you came." I laughed and said I was glad too. "Not," continued this artless young person, "that we were glad when we first heard you were coming--I mean except daddy. Mother said: 'Dear me! I fear he will expect a bathroom to himself!' And Dick said: 'Is he as dirty as all that?' Even daddy laughed at that. And Dick was so much pleased with himself that he got a bit above himself, and went on to say that all Americans were 'bounders.' So daddy stopped his 'sweet,' and he _did_ look silly! But it seems to me you are just like other people, only rather '_droll_.'" As we drew near the house she evidently began to think that, after all, Dick might be an authority on "bounders," for she remarked, with studied carelessness: "I shouldn't think it necessary to repeat at home everything we have been talking about." I gravely assured her that I made it a rule never to repeat the conversation I had had with the young lady I took buggy-riding. "Buggy-riding?" she cried; "what is that?" "Why, what you call a fly, we call a buggy." Her reaction was rather deliberate, but finally she exclaimed: "Oh, I see. 'Bug' and 'fly.' That's awfully good. I must tell Dick that!" XXII AN "AVERAGE" SUNDAY